Tarnished plant bug

Tarnished plant bug
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hemiptera
Suborder: Heteroptera
Family: Miridae
Genus: Lygus
Species: L. lineolaris
Binomial name
Lygus lineolaris
(Palisot de Beauvois, 1818)

The tarnished plant bug (TPB) or Lygus lineolaris is a species of plant-feeding insects of the family Miridae. It has piercing-sucking mouthparts and has become a serious pest on small fruits and vegetables in North America. It feeds on over half of all commercially-grown crop plants, but favors cotton, alfalfa, beans, stone fruits, and conifer seedlings. This bug can be found across North America, from northern Canada to southern Mexico. Adults grow up to 6.5 mm in length, and are brown with accents of yellow, orange or red, with a light-colored "V" on the back (dorsal).[1]

Control

Insecticides: Growers routinely make 3-5 applications of insecticides each year to control this insect. Considering the narrow profit margin for today's farmers, the cost of such applications are significant.

Biological control: In the mid 1980s, parasitic wasps, Peristenus digoneutis, were imported from France and their acculturalization in the north-eastern United States has resulted in reduction of crop losses to the TPB of up to 63% in alfalfa and 65% in apples.[1] The University of Vermont Entomology Laboratory studied various entomopathogenic fungi for pathogenicity against TPB.[2] The fungus Beavaria bassiana is sometimes used to control TPB.[3]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Liu, Houping; Skinner, Margaret; Parker, Bruce L. and Day, W. H. (May 2003). "Recognizing Tarnished Plant Bug Damage". University of Vermont Entomology Laboratory. Archived from the original on 23 January 2014.
  2. ↑ Liu, Houping; Skinner, Maragret; Parker, Bruce L. and Brownbridge, Michael (2002). "Pathogenicity of Beauveria bassiana, Metarhizium anisopliae (Deuteromycotina : Hyphomycetes), and other entomopathogenic fungi against Lygus lineolaris (Hemiptera : Miridae)". Journal of Economic Entomology 95 (4): 675–681. doi:10.1603/0022-0493-95.4.675.
  3. ↑ "Tarnished plant bug (TPB)". Vermont Vegetable and Berry Newsletter. University of Vermont Extension. 15 May 1998. Archived from the original on 17 January 2002.

External links